【英语中国】上海世博 雄心万丈

The all-new Bund, symbol of Shanghai's capitalist past, will soon sport the perfect icon of a nakedly ambitious future, a replica of the great Bronze Bull of Wall Street, representing the aggressive aspirations of the world's newest financial superpower.

The new Bund Bull, created by the sculptor of the original Raging Bull of Wall Street, will take up residence on the stretch of Art Deco riverside that has symbolised Shanghai for generations.

However, the bull is just a tiny part of a wholesale rebranding of the city that starts tomorrow, with the opening of the Rmb400bn ($59bn) Shanghai World Expo – more than twice as costly as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but, arguably, with a more enduring impact.

The bull, due to be unveiled on the eve of Expo, is yet another sign that, fresh from beating the financial crisis, China also plans global capital market supremacy – preferably by 2020, the deadline Beijing has set for Shanghai to become a global financial centre.

Even a bull twice his size would find the task difficult: from unreliable laws, to a non-convertible currency, a skilled talent gap and a 45 per cent tax rate, there are huge obstacles on the path to 2020.

“How can a country that blocks YouTube ever be a financial powerhouse?” asks one market analyst, only half in jest.

Still, the past year has seen big steps toward the transformation of Shanghai, not to mention its financial markets.

One of the biggest is Expo – the largest and most costly event that many FT readers have never heard of. Like past Expos, which gave the world everything from the Eiffel Tower to caramel corn and the US interstate highway system, this one could be memorable for decades – or it could be condemned as a waste of Rmb400bn.

The next six months, during which Expo will host up to 100m people, 95 per cent of them from China, will give Shanghai the chance to demonstrate whether there is substance behind the swank.

The city fathers have been gearing up for the event for decades but recently preparations have gone into overdrive: virtually every street has been repaved, new drains have been dug (sometimes more than once), new kerbs laid, new footpaths made and the length of the vast subway system doubled in a year.

Street-facing fa?ades have been repainted or rebuilt by the government, often without notifying owners; motorways and bridges are decked out in new bright neon; city residents have gone to sleep beside grim building sites and woken to find fully grown trees where once was only mud and girders.

Every day seems to bring a new metro line or high-speed rail link – even a whole new airport terminal. The site itself – 5.28 sq km along the banks of the murky Huangpu river – has been adorned with more than 200 national, corporate and municipal pavilions, stately pleasure domes filled with visions of a future where urban living is clean, green and techno-geeky and where Shanghai is the centre of the universe.

Like the Oriental Pearl Tower, which symbolised all that was futuristic in 1990s Shanghai, the flying saucer shape of the Expo performance centre is destined to grace postcards and web pages as the new, new face of Shanghai.

Change is more than skin-deep: the Shanghai government has been renovating residents' attitudes as well – part of what it calls a “spiritual civilisation” campaign.

Some of the 170,000 Expo volunteers have been formed into behavioural adjustment squads. They stand at busy metro stations urging people to stand to the right on escalators; they discourage spitting, queue-jumping, pushing and shouting – all well-loved Shanghainese habits.

They encourage diners to take home restaurant leftovers; they penalize smoking in public places; and they even go door-to-door encouraging residents not to wear pyjamas in public, Shanghai's most endearing cultural practice.

Ladies match a handbag to their best PJs, for a trip to the shops; old men wear only boxer shorts in the sultry streets. The Shanghai government wants to abolish this practice as backward and embarrassing; but some residents have fought back, saying they want the freedom to choose their own wardrobe.

Best of all, for those of us who live in the city, Expo has commissioned new toilet technology: toilets that expel odours below the level of the human nose.

But China aims to do more than just model smell reduction. The theme of Expo is “better city, better life”; Shanghai aims to lead the world in sustainable urban development. Unfortunately, preparing for Expo hardly demonstrated its credentials in that regard: vast tracts of traditional housing were knocked down to beautify the city, a heedless rush to the future that risks eradicating history.

Wujiang Lu, the city's famous snack street – where octopus could be had on a stick alongside Shanghai's beloved soup dumplings – is to be sanitised and redeveloped.

Starbucks and Krispy Kreme doughnuts have already moved in: another sign of how hard it is to find – in the words of one long-time Shanghai resident – “what is interesting about Shanghai these days”.

One expatriate who is a long-term Shanghai resident says Expo can actually help: “Money has been taking over the city and ripping out its soul. Expo gives opponents of that process a voice – finally”.

But money is Shanghai's future. Everyone agrees it will have a big role in ensuring China allocates its investment capital better.

The city has taken significant steps toward that goal, introducing futures trading and trial margin trading and short selling, all in the past few weeks. As always, it is starting small.

To trade index futures (agreements to buy or sell an index at a pre-set value on an agreed date), investors must put up Rmb500,000 plus a 15 to 18 per cent margin and pass a test as tough as the UK driving test – barriers that will keep out most participants.

“This is starting so small that it may have only a negligible impact, at least at first,” says Michael Kurtz, China equities head at Macquarie.

Still, says Jerry Lou, China strategist at Morgan Stanley: “We are making a big step toward a real market with these reforms.”

Many more steps must be taken – some of them entirely beyond Shanghai's control – but a city that can lay whole sidewalks complete with full-grown shade trees between midnight and dawn should not be underestimated.

It has money, determination, and boundless ambition. Other cities should be so lucky.

Additional reporting by Shirley Chen.

作为上海资本主义历史的象征，今天的外滩已是焕然一新。它即将迎来能完美折射上海勃勃雄心的一个新地标：一个华尔街铜塑“金融牛”的复制品，这头牛身上承载着这座城市成为全球最新金融霸主的无限渴望。

外滩的铜牛由华尔街“愤怒的公牛”的原设计者创作完成，将坐落于极富艺术装饰风格(Art Deco)的黄浦江畔。几代人以来，这里一直是上海的象征。

不过，在上海彻底重塑城市品牌的规划中，这只铜牛只是微不足道的一部分。将于明日开幕的上海世博会(Shanghai World Expo)，耗资4000亿元人民币（合590亿美元），是2008年北京奥运会花费的两倍以上，而其影响力有可能将更为持久。

不过，定于世博会前夜揭幕的铜牛，同时也是另一种信号：刚刚击退金融危机的中国，还计划谋求全球资本市场的霸主地位——最理想的情况是在2020年前实现这一目标。这是中国政府为上海设定的成为全球金融中心的最后期限。

但即使是体型大上一倍的公牛，也会觉得这是一项艰巨的任务：在通往2020年的道路上，存在着种种巨大的障碍——从不太可靠的法律、无法自由兑换的货币，到人才匮乏以及45%的税率。

一位市场分析师半开玩笑半认真地说：“一个屏蔽YouTube的国家，怎么可能成为金融霸主呢？”

尽管如此，过去一年，上海在城市转型上取得了诸多重大进展，远不局限于金融市场方面。

最大的成就之一就是世博会本身。本届世博会的规模和成本，是英国《金融时报》许多读者闻所未闻的。以往的世博会带给世人各种各样的新鲜事物，从埃菲尔铁塔到焦糖玉米和美国州际公路系统。与它们一样，本届世博会或许在未来数十年都会被人铭记。不然的话，人们或许会指责4000亿元人民币的花费是个浪费。

未来6个月，世博会将接待多达1亿人，其中95%来自中国。这将给上海一个机会，展示这场风光背后是否有真材实料。

上海的历任领导者其实数十年前就开始了城市改造，但为了世博的最新一轮准备工作实在有些过头：在一年内，上海几乎重铺了所有街道，挖了（有时不止一次）新的下水道，铺设了新的路沿，修建了新的人行道，将庞大的地铁线路延长了一倍。

政府重新粉刷或修缮了临街墙面——经常是在不通知所有者的情况下；高速路和桥梁上安装了明亮的新霓虹灯；居住在乱糟糟工地附近的居民，一觉醒来，发现在原本只有泥浆和大梁的地方，种上了枝繁叶茂的树木。

似乎每天都有新的地铁线路或高速铁路建成，甚至还有一个全新的机场候机楼。世博园区——在混浊的黄浦江江畔一块方圆5.28平方公里的土地——竖起了200多座国家、企业和市政场馆。这些富丽堂皇的欢乐宫集中展示了未来的场景：洁净、绿色、高科技的城市生活，而上海则成为宇宙的中心。

与上世纪90年代象征着所有未来主义风格的东方明珠塔(Oriental Pearl Tower)一样，飞碟形状的世博文化中心，注定会作为上海的最新面孔，出现在各种明信片和网页上。

变化并非仅仅在表面：上海市政府一直在纠正市民的行为习惯，作为其称之为“精神文明”活动的一部分。

世博会有17万名志愿者，其中一些志愿者组成了纠正不良行为的小组。他们站在繁忙的地铁里，敦促人们站在自动扶梯的右侧；他们劝阻人们随地吐痰、插队、推搡和大声叫嚷——这些都被视作上海人颇难改掉的习惯。

他们鼓励就餐者将剩菜打包带回家；他们对在公共场所吸烟的人进行处罚；他们甚至挨家挨户地敦促市民不要在公共场所穿睡衣——最后这项似乎是上海人最钟爱的一种生活习惯。

女士们会挎上与自己最好的睡衣相配的手包去逛商店；在闷热的街道上，老年男子会只穿着条平角短裤。上海市政府希望消灭这种落后而令人尴尬的行为。但一些市民则反驳称，他们希望有选择着装的自由。

对我们这些生活在这座城市的人来说，最棒的一点是，新的厕所技术已在本届世博会中投入使用。这些厕所散发出的异味很小，人的鼻子闻不出来。

但是，中国的目标不仅仅是树立一个减少异味的榜样。本届世博会的主题是“城市，让生活更美好”，上海的目标是在可持续城市发展方面引领全球。遗憾的是，本届世博会的筹备工作却很难证明上海能够做到这一点：为了美化城市，大片的传统住宅被拆除，这种不顾后果奔向未来的做法，存在彻底毁掉历史的危险。

吴江路是上海一条著名的小吃街，人们在那里可以一边品尝鱿鱼串，一边吃两口倍受喜爱的上海小馄饨。这条街将被拆除并重新开发。

星巴克(Starbucks)和卡卡圈坊(Krispy Kreme)已进驻该街，再一次表明——正如一位长期居住在上海的人所说的那样——“如今上海已很难找到什么有趣的东西”。

一位久居上海的外派人员表示，世博会实际上能起到好的作用：“金钱一直主宰着这座城市，剥除着它的灵魂。终于，世博会给了反对这一进程的人说话的机会。”

然而，金钱就是上海的未来。每个人都认同一点：即上海将在确保中国更有效地配置投资资金方面发挥更大的作用。

上海已朝着这一目标迈出重要步伐。仅在过去几周，它就启动了股指期货交易和融资融券试点。与往常一样，这些交易首先在小范围展开。

若想参与股指期货交易（在商定日期以预设价格买卖股指的协议），投资者必须拥有至少50万元人民币的开户资金，保证金比例在15%至18%，还要通过一场像英国驾照考试那样严格的考试——这些障碍足以把大多数市场参与者拒之门外。

麦格理(Macquarie)中国股票主管迈克尔?库尔茨(Michael Kurtz)表示：“一开始参与交易的人数非常少，因此至少在初期阶段，它的影响可能微不足道。”

不过，摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)中国策略师娄刚(Jerry Lou)表示：“借助这些改革举措，我们正朝着真正的市场迈出重要一步。”

上海还必须采取更多的举措——其中一些举措完全超出了它的掌控范围。但对于一座能在午夜到拂晓的时间里，铺设完整的一条人行道、并在道上栽好枝繁叶茂大树的城市，人们不应低估它的能力。

上海有资金、有决心，也有着无穷的抱负。它的幸运让其它城市望尘莫及。

Shirley Chen补充报道

译者/何黎